A quest to improve through slow chess

Tag Archives: French Defense

I have written about what my ideal game would be in a previous post but it would be a game versus a human over a long time control and it would be free of blunders – ideally it would have great tactical combinations. Yesterday I played my best game to date. It was the final game in a ‘once a week’ tournament and because I had won all my previous games, partly through luck, I ended up being undefeated on board one. This competition is ACF rated and my rating when I joined the tournament was 863, opposite me was my opponent who was a FIDE Master with an ACF rating of 2082. Here is the game, I am White.

[Event "Sunday Tournament"]
[White "Me"]
[Black "Them"]
[Result "1-0"]
1.e4 c5 {The Sicilian is a very complex system and as usual I wanted to avoid the theory by playing the offbeat} 2.a3 {a move I have discussed in my post &#8216;Messing With The Sicillians} Nc6 3.b4 e6 {is an unusual move. On the second move it is usual for Black to play either 2. &#8230;Nc6 3.b4 followed by cxb4 or to play 2. &#8230;e6 3.b4 followed by cxb4. This seemed like a hybrid and slow way of protecting b4. But my intention was to always play} 4.bxc5 {if I could} Bxc5 5.c3 d5 {seems like a mistake because I want to play} 6.d4 {this forces} Bf8 {and allows a strong stable centre for me and little scope for Black} 7.e5 {I am very happy with the opening. It has turned into a French type of opening similar to my post &#8216;Waterloo, Outflanking The French&#8217;. Typically in the French Black relies on pressure to the d4 pawn but because Black&#8217;s c pawn is missing this is impossible and it becomes an impotent French} Nge7 8.Bd3 Bd7 9.Nf3 h6 {blunting my attack on the Kingside. I have three ideas at this stage, they are to gain control of the b file, to protect the c file and to later look for a Kingside attack, possibly with pawns} 10.a4 Na5 11.Na3 a6 12.O-O Rc8 13.Bd2 Nc4 14.Nxc4 dxc4 15.Bc2 Bc6 16.Re1 Qa5 17.Qe2 Bd5 18.Rec1 Nc6 19.Be4 Be7 20.Bxd5 Qxd5 {I was worried about Black&#8217;s Knight penetrating so I played} 21.Be3 Na5 {to allow} 22.Nd2 {which stabilises that prospect} O-O 23.Rcb1 Rc7 24.Qg4 {This move almost forces} Kh7 {which allows me to swap off Queens with} 25.Qe4+ Qxe4 26.Nxe4 {I felt this was better for me. Psychologically Black needs to win and with less pieces on the board this becomes more difficult. I also felt I had more options and better pawns} Nb3 27.Ra2 Rd8 28.Nd2 Na5 29.Rb6 Rd5 {The position is locked and I felt that I had time to start moving my Kingside pawns up so that if we went into an endgame I would be closer to Queening} 30.f4 Rcd7 31.Kf2 Bd8 32.Rb1 f6 33.Ke2 f5 34.g3 Kg8 35.Kf3 g5 36.Rb4 g4+ 37.Ke2 Rc7 38.Rb6 Kf7 39.Ra1 Rc8 40.Rb4 h5 41.h3 {A dangerous move potentially opening up the Kingside for both of us} Be7 42.Rbb1 Rg8 {Too scary for me so I lock it up with} 43.h4 {now it&#8217;s the battle of the b file} Rc8 44.Rb6 Bd8 45.Rbb1 Ke7 46.Rb2 Kd7 47.Rab1 Kc6 48.Bf2 Rb8 49.Rb4 b5 50.Nxc4 {I thought over this position a while and went for the tactic} Nxc4! 51.Rxc4+ bxc4 52.Rxb8 {only after} Be7 {did I realise my a4 pawn was in danger} 53.Be1 Ra5 54.Rh8 Rxa4 {and the pawn race is on} 55.Rxh5 Ra2+ 56.Bd2 a5 57.Rh8 a4 58.Ra8 Kb7 59.Re8 Ba3 60.Kd1 Ra1+ 61.Kc2 Rg1 62.Rxe6 Rxg3 63.h5 Rh3 64.h6 Bf8 65.Rf6 Bxh6 66.e6 Kc7 67.d5 g3 68.e7 Kd7 69.d6 {I missed 69.Re6 which wins} g2 70.Rg6 {missed Re6 again!} Rh2 {and now I miss the winning Rg8 (mate in 9) but after} 71.Re6 {Black resigns with &#8220;a3 is rubbish. I should have never let you get away with it&#8221;. Clearly he was angry at himself. The engines proposed line looks grim for Black with} (71. Re6 Kxe6 72.e8=Q+ Kxd6 73.Qe5+ Kc6 74.Qe6+ Kb7 75.Qd7+ Kb8 76.Qb5+ Kc7 77.Qxc4+ Kd8 78.Qd4+ Ke7)
1-0

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The game was great for me – my best to date. It wasn’t overly tactical but I think it was beautifully positional and I was very happy to play such delicate moves over such a long period. Looking at the engine output after this analysis shows that it was extremely close and didn’t vary by more than 1 point for for 50+ moves! Even after 65 moves there was never more than 2 points in it.

I have been posting about openings and focussing on the Scots Gambit for white and the Scandinavian for black. This weekend I entered my monthly ‘Rookies’ tournament at Boxhill Chess Club and played seven 15 minute games. In 4 games I played black and I was able to play the Scandinavian 3 times – my fourth black game was against an English opening and I played the symetrical. So the Scandinavian worked well and I think it unsettled my opponents. I also played three white games; one was a Sicilian that went beautifully – I used my ‘messing with the Sicilians’ system, another was against a French and my last was a Scots Gambit. In my Scots Gambit game I had a winning position early on and was happy to take a three repeat draw against a player with a 500 point higher rating. So less opportunity, this time, for my prepared white opening but it seemed to work when I played it. It looks like the next to openings I need to learn for white are answers to the French and answers to the English.

The opening of my Sicilian (Click on moves in parenthesis to see the engines recommendation)

Opening knowledge is something that grows over time. It starts as a three point premise of: 1. Control the centre, 2. Develop your pieces, 3. Castle. From there you notice things naturally occur. Knights often support central pawns, bishops flank out to pin and soon you form a personal opening that seems to occur often. This was the stage I was at a couple of years ago but I knew there was more to it. Growing up in the UK I watched TV coverage of Nigel Short getting thrashed by Garry Kasparov and commentators mention things like ‘Najdorf Variation’ and ‘Poisoned Pawn’. So I sought to find out more about openings so that I could ‘master’ a white and a black opening. My research led me to two openings that are widely respected and often seen as the ‘best’. These were the Ruy Lopez for white and the Sicilian for black. What I didn’t realise is how complex they can be. I played a cursory version of these openings during computer blitz games for a long time without really understanding them. After a time I started to get a feel for them and I supplemented this with watching videos about them. I still don’t know much about them but what I do know is that I feel much more comfortable with the Ruy than with the Sicilian and I’m much happier with the Najdorf than the Dragon if I play the Sicilian.

More recently I have played the Orangutan and Danish gambit as white and the French, Kings Indian and Ruy Lopez as black (as opposed to playing as white). All of these openings I play at a basic level and I feel ok with the white openings but I’m not happy with my black defences and the way my games pan out. The French seems as complicated as the Sicilian, the Ruy as black seems a lesser version of the Ruy as white and the Kings Indian always seems cramped.

I got to talking about openings at my Tuesday club and the teacher there suggested the Scandinavian since it flowed fairly naturally as black but could easily trip up white. We looked at various versions of it and it looked good for the type of chess I am interested in. I will do some more work on it.

Also, in my postal games, I am also trying to steer away from openings I know so that I can study new openings as they play out. I see this as an enjoyable way of finding out about other openings.

my aim at this stage is not to have a full understanding of any opening but rather to understand some openings enough that I can play them in over the board games to a point where the middle game takes over without me being overly disadvantaged.